Perfect praise.

Psalm 8...O Lord our God, the majesty and glory of your name fills all the earth and overflows the heavens. 2 You have taught the little children to praise you perfectly. May their example shame and silence your enemies!

 

I'll never forget the day I learned people could hear me when I sing in the shower.  I was in high school and my cousins were in town Christmas.  I was into show tunes those days...Les Miserables, Phantom of the Opera, a collection of Andrew Lloyd Weber's greatest hits.  I had the first shower shift among my three sisters.  With everyone else still in bed it was like a sanctuary for me, the warm water, the solitude.  The acoustics were great in there.  It never occurred to me that the sound carried beyond the walls of the bathroom until my cousin, David, said, "Hey, nice concert this morning."  They could hear me???!!  At the time I was so embarrassed.  Now all I can think of is how many mornings my poor sisters must have awoken to my emotional rendering of "One Day More" at 5:45am.      

Loud, oblivious singing runs in our family.  Blake's probably the newest practitioner with his breakfast-time originals like "I Love My Cinnamon Roll" and his ability to hum Christmas carols in the middle of summer for 45+ minutes on a long road trip.  But the true master of the art is my father.  He has a penchant for cowboy music and often makes up his own words to familiar hymns and spirituals.  If you've never heard him sing "Up From the Bed the Poodle Rose" or "So Long Saddle Pals" at 8:30am on a Saturday morning you've never really lived. 

My father, and those that follow in his musical footsteps, has taught me much about perfect praise.  Not perfect pitch.  No...we used to fight about who had to sit next to him in church.  After years and years of work in our church choir I am pleased to say that he can now carry a tune, but still needs a pretty strong bucket.  But perfect praise nonetheless!  The kind that comes from deep inside your heart and doesn't care how late you were up the night before, what sort of issue is going on in your life, how much homework you have to do or how much your kids are whining about it....you're getting up and going to church!  Because GOD. IS. GOOD. and worthy of praise!!  It isn't really about the singing though I feel like I've always connected best with God through music.  It's about the whole-hearted, unembarrassed joy Christ brings to our life and the chance to turn that back around to Him. 

Perfect praise, friends.  Perfect praise.  It don't matter if it's 8:30 in the morning or 8:30 at night.  I will never tire of the sound of it.  May the sound never tire from me.

XOXO....Kelly